Your grace is sufficient for me O Lord.
I could never pay off my debt. It's too big, too great, too endless.
All other religions in this world are striving to ear their way into heaven with hopes that, "I've been good enough."
NEWS FLASH: our sin debt is too monstrous to ever be good enough- Even if I awake every morning with the intent to earn salvation, seeking to do everything good I could find to do.
What happens when...I get angry, or tell a little fib, or ignore someone who needs my help, or how about when I just once don't do what my boss has ask my to do, or what if I take something that doesn't belong to me, or don't follow the speed limit, or run a stop sign, or judge a friend. What if? My debt just increases more and more. No matter what I do to pay it off, my very selfishness and even sometimes my own habits only add more to it, therefore adding what I've worked so hard to take away.
I will NEVER pay it off my sin debt. I will NEVER earn my way to heaven. I will NEVER be good enough.
BUT JESUS WILL.
And that my friends is exactly why He came. He knew/knows we can't erase, defeat, or pay back our debt. He knows we are trapped, chained, enslaved to our sin. He came for a rescue like no other. He brought His grace. The grace that absolutely swarms our very being- the grace that says, "I erase your debt. I let you walk free. I rescue you today." No more working for love. It's yours. All yours, as much as your want and need for the rest of your life.
But there's one catch- Jesus. Do you believe He's real? Do you believe He came to rescue YOU? Do you believe He's perfect in every way, righteous, and holy? Do you believe He wants His very blood to make you those things too? It's true. He is the way. He is the truth. He is life, and life abundant. And He is here to rescue YOU!
I think of my sweet friends across the world- in debt ed to the brothels of India. So engulfed by what they owe they shall never escape the chains of sex trafficking, they have no hope. They will never see life outside of the district because their debt is too great to pay back. BUT if someone came and said to them, "Walk free today. Your debts are ALL taken care of. You don't have to live in chains any longer. I've come to rescue you. And give you life everlasting." Not one of my friends would dare say, "No thank you, not today."
Because they know the torment they face everyday. They know they are lost and invisible without a rescuer. They know they need a savior of some kind because...They recognize how great their debt is, they see how much they owe.
That is the difference in my friends in India and my friends here at home. Those in India see how magnificent the amounts of money they owe the brothels and the madam. They see that there is no way in all of eternity that they can work to pay it off. 40 men a night won't be enough, nor 50 or 60 men. It is hopeless, their debt is too great. And it only increases, never decreases. They need a savior. My friends here that are lost, and enslaved to their sin...they need one too. They just have a harder time recognizing their need.
Before you will ever realize you need a Savior, you must first recognize how great your debt is. And i pray not one person reading this walks away from the grace of Jesus today.
It is FREE, and I promise you this...
IT IS MORE THAN ENOUGH TO COVER WHAT YOU OWE.
"...But where sin increased, grace increased all the more." :Romans 5:20
"It is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God." :Ephesians 2:8
I could never pay off my debt. It's too big, too great, too endless.
All other religions in this world are striving to ear their way into heaven with hopes that, "I've been good enough."
NEWS FLASH: our sin debt is too monstrous to ever be good enough- Even if I awake every morning with the intent to earn salvation, seeking to do everything good I could find to do.
What happens when...I get angry, or tell a little fib, or ignore someone who needs my help, or how about when I just once don't do what my boss has ask my to do, or what if I take something that doesn't belong to me, or don't follow the speed limit, or run a stop sign, or judge a friend. What if? My debt just increases more and more. No matter what I do to pay it off, my very selfishness and even sometimes my own habits only add more to it, therefore adding what I've worked so hard to take away.
I will NEVER pay it off my sin debt. I will NEVER earn my way to heaven. I will NEVER be good enough.
BUT JESUS WILL.
And that my friends is exactly why He came. He knew/knows we can't erase, defeat, or pay back our debt. He knows we are trapped, chained, enslaved to our sin. He came for a rescue like no other. He brought His grace. The grace that absolutely swarms our very being- the grace that says, "I erase your debt. I let you walk free. I rescue you today." No more working for love. It's yours. All yours, as much as your want and need for the rest of your life.
But there's one catch- Jesus. Do you believe He's real? Do you believe He came to rescue YOU? Do you believe He's perfect in every way, righteous, and holy? Do you believe He wants His very blood to make you those things too? It's true. He is the way. He is the truth. He is life, and life abundant. And He is here to rescue YOU!
I think of my sweet friends across the world- in debt ed to the brothels of India. So engulfed by what they owe they shall never escape the chains of sex trafficking, they have no hope. They will never see life outside of the district because their debt is too great to pay back. BUT if someone came and said to them, "Walk free today. Your debts are ALL taken care of. You don't have to live in chains any longer. I've come to rescue you. And give you life everlasting." Not one of my friends would dare say, "No thank you, not today."
Because they know the torment they face everyday. They know they are lost and invisible without a rescuer. They know they need a savior of some kind because...They recognize how great their debt is, they see how much they owe.
That is the difference in my friends in India and my friends here at home. Those in India see how magnificent the amounts of money they owe the brothels and the madam. They see that there is no way in all of eternity that they can work to pay it off. 40 men a night won't be enough, nor 50 or 60 men. It is hopeless, their debt is too great. And it only increases, never decreases. They need a savior. My friends here that are lost, and enslaved to their sin...they need one too. They just have a harder time recognizing their need.
Before you will ever realize you need a Savior, you must first recognize how great your debt is. And i pray not one person reading this walks away from the grace of Jesus today.
It is FREE, and I promise you this...
IT IS MORE THAN ENOUGH TO COVER WHAT YOU OWE.
"...But where sin increased, grace increased all the more." :Romans 5:20
"It is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God." :Ephesians 2:8
This is a really good way of putting salvation into words. It made me cry. I hope someone somewhere will read this feel the way I do for the first time in their life.
ReplyDeleteThe Gospel in simple explanation but words do full of His Power to anyone who will accept and believe the truth of these words. God bless you. Praying for you and the missionaries in India.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great way to put it and so completely true. I wish more people could understand and see it this way. I absolutely LOOOOVE reading your blog! You are such a sweetie.
ReplyDeleteI have been following you on Twitter for a while now, but I didn't realize until tonight that you have a blog, and what a blessing to read it!
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to encourage you to keep sharing the things that God puts on your heart. You never know what kind of impact you might actually make in 140 characters or less!(As well as through your blog!)
I'll give you two examples. :)
1.Last week I was working on the last few pages of a project, but I felt that something was missing. I've been working on it for about a year and a half and I have just kept praying that the Lord would show me the missing piece. Then you tweeted your tweet about Jeremiah 2 and the whole picture came together! God knew exactly when BOTH of us needed to see it!
2. I'm currently organizing a missions trip to Kenya. Yesterday, I was talking with one of the team members who was feeling discouraged that she was not adequate and would not be there long enough to have much of an impact. I reminded her that it is the Lord Who does the work not us. Then I remembered your tweet about those who came to Christ while you were in Kenya and I shared that testimony with her. She was so encouraged!
Keep sharing your faith and what God is doing in and through you - it makes a difference! Rachel Miller
Ashton,
ReplyDeleteSo, I don't know if you'll ever read this or not, knowing how busy life can get, but wanted to ask you something... Was there ever any thought in your mind that being a missionary wasn't what God wanted you to do?
I really want to attend DTS when I graduate, but hearing what my family thinks about it gets kind of discouraging. Not everybody has to be a missionary, I know. And I'm sure I could live a fruitful life just making a few people happy, so I'm just confused.
When I first realized that it was what God wants me to do, it seemed so obvious... until everyone found out, and they're all apprehensive. I don't mean to even imply that I would be better than anyone else just because I want to be a missionary. I just feel like it's my place. Yet still, I am praying about it because I'm having second thoughts.
Here's a link to a post on my blog:
http://karynlori.blogspot.com/2012/03/go_01.html
Like I said, I know how busy life is, so you don't have to read it. It's just what I wrote when I felt God calling. But... do you think it was a fluke? I have a hard time believing that.
Any advice?
(Ashton, I hope you don't mind me jumping in here.)
DeleteKaryn,
Your post brought tears to my eyes. And then I went and read your blog and that really grabbed my heart! I have had SOOOOO many talks with God on the bathroom floor! :)
The Lord first put missions and, in particular working with orphans, on my heart when I was twelve years old. I knew...just like you knew that night...what God had said to me. He had been working in my heart for months and I finally surrendered. But, that very same night someone, a grown up at a church service, said to me "Oh, don't you know there is no such thing as an orphan any more? That's just something you read about in storybooks." I was crushed. How could I have heard so wrongly? Over the next couple of years I got side-tracked. But when I was 18 God used a very specific passage from Scripture to remind me of my promise to Him and that HE remembered my commitment. Ecclesiastes 5:4-7 says, "When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow a vow, than that thou shouldest vow a vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands? For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear God."
For me, that was very powerful. I had been wanting to serve God, but wanting to do it in my own way. That day I realized that I needed to serve God the way HE wanted me to. No excuses.
It isn't a matter of what other people think. I let that woman's words cause me to doubt what God had given me to do. God, in His faithfulness, drew me back. The important thing is this, What is God saying to you? He may use others to help guide you as far as timing and the steps that you take to get where He wants you, but ultimately you have to know that you are going where you are going because GOD told you to. Otherwise, you will not survive missions. Missions is a lot of hard work. It can be lonely. The confidence that you are exactly where God wants you is sometimes the only thing you have to cling to.
To make a long story short, a year later I found myself in Russia and guess who I was working with - orphans. God gave me the blessing of working with those children for 10 years and to work in a couple of other countries since then. Serving Him is the greatest joy in my life.
Someone very wise once said, "Do not doubt in the darkness what God showed you in the light." If God has called you, do not back away. Let Him lead you forward.
Have I ever had moments of doubt? Yes, there have been some really dark moments when it seemed like nothing could ever fix the situations around me. Times when I thought maybe I had gotten completely off track - but God always reminded me that this was what He had called me to and HE would carry me through it. He has never failed.
You and you alone can know what God is calling you to do. Be open to counsel. Be in God's Word DAILY, moment by moment if need be. He will lead you. I will be praying for you.
Rachel Miller